Consumers 🦃 Feast on Holiday Deals 🛍

A Note From The Editor 👋 (1)

Welcome to the fourth installment of Shiftonomics!

If you're new to our newsletter, we truly appreciate you taking the time to read. Every two weeks, we scour the Interwebs in an effort to surface the best stories about the world of retail and shift work.

These are some of the topics we've discovered this week.

A look at the numbers from the big holiday weekend shopping extravaganza. How did American retailers do?

A major American airline experienced a big scheduling glitch. What happened?

The workforce is about to experience it's biggest changes in labor demand since the early 1900s when big city manufacturing jobs lured former agricultural employees. So, what skills will be needed in the future?

In the face of Amazon's success, how are retailers responding?

As we continue to talk about the demise shopping in America, the Mall of America stands out as an interesting character in the ever-twisting future of retail narrative.

All eyes on the Upper Midwest. The Recent press continues to favor Minneapolis and explore how retail tech is growing here.
Shift on!

Taylor Pipes & The Shiftonomics Crew

News ⚡️ (2)

Let's Look at the 🎄 Holiday Shopping Numbers

Chances are you spent some time shopping for family and friends over the Thanksgiving weekend. But, chances are even better you purchased an item from the comfort of home using your mobile device. Here's a look at the numbers and headlines that shaped Black Friday, Small Business Saturday, and Cyber Monday 2017.

The importance of employee scheduling often flies under the radar until something goes wrong. This week, American Airlines rushed to ensure that thousands of December flights aren’t affected by a scheduling error that left the nation’s largest carrier without enough pilots assigned to work during the busy holiday season.

The Big Idea 🤔 (3)

Within the next 15 years, nearly 15 percent of the global workforce may need to switch jobs, according to a new report released this week by the McKinsey Global Institute. By 2030, 75 million to 375 million workers will change occupation categories while another 400 to 800 million could be displaced by automation and required to find new jobs entirely. Caroline Fairchild, Managing Editor at LinkedIn looks at the skills that can be showcased as automation looms.

One of the most interesting profiles we've read this week focuses on one of the most common retail narratives: Amazon vs. everyone else. In the quest to explore the future of retail in America, Fast Company reporter Austin Carr journeys to the Mall of America, Target, and Martin Patrick3 to explore how they're working hard to stay relevant and succeed in ways Amazon can't.

As the conversation around the "retail apocalypse" continue to get louder, the Mall of America continues to weather the storm. It's fought off recessions and economic malaise and saw a $325 million dollar renovation completed in 2015. This year, MSP Mag profiled the MOA as it turned 25. It's a fitting long-form feature of a landmark fighting to keep pace with the upheaval happening in retail.

Heard Around The Web 💬 (2)

For better or worse, it's taken a long time for the bright light to shine on the tech space in Minneapolis. Recently, the positive coverage of our Upper Midwestern city keeps on coming.

We've chronicled our move from the sunny beaches of Southern California to the land of 10,000 lakes before. But, this week Ozy featured us in a profile that looks at how startups here are changing the face of the retail tech landscape.

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